Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs
Futarchy: 对价值投票，对赌信念
by Robin Hanson
This short "manifesto" describes a new form of government. In "futarchy," we would vote on values, but bet on beliefs. Elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare.
这段简短的“声明”描述了一种新的管理方式。在“futarchy”中，我们可以对价值投票，对赌信念。当选代表对国民福利，会在形式上规定和管理“事后”措施，同时市场投机者会说出期待那种策略来提升国民财富。

Democracy seems better than autocracy (i.e., kings and dictators), but it still has problems. There are today vast differences in wealth among nations, and we can not attribute most of these differences to either natural resources or human abilities. Instead, much of the difference seems to be that the poor nations (many of which are democracies) are those that more often adopted dumb policies, policies which hurt most everyone in the nation. And even rich nations frequently adopt such policies.

民主看上去比独裁（例如：国王和独裁者）更好，但是它仍然有问题。当今社会，国家财富包括不同的众多方面，但是我们不能归类这些不同要么为自然资源，要么为人类的能力。而是，多数的不同看来是贫穷的国家（许多是民主国家）是更多的采取了愚蠢的政策，这些政策伤害了国家中的多数个体。甚至是富有的国家也会经常采取这样的政策。

These policies are not just dumb in retrospect; typically there were people who understood a lot about such policies and who had good reasons to disapprove of them beforehand. It seems hard to imagine such policies being adopted nearly as often if everyone knew what such "experts" knew about their consequences. Thus familiar forms of government seem to frequently fail by ignoring the advice of relevant experts (i.e., people who know relevant things).

这些政策并不止是事后回顾起来才知道愚蠢；通常有一些人懂得很多这样的愚蠢策略并有很好的理由在事前反对他们。如果每个人知道存在这样的一些“专家”明白它们的后果，很难想象这些愚蠢的策略还会如此频繁地采纳。因此常见形式的管理会频繁地失败，因为它忽略了相关专家（那些知道相关事情的人）的建议。

Would some other form of government more consistently listen to relevant experts? Even if we could identify the current experts, we could not just put them in charge. They might then do what is good for them rather than what is good for the rest of us, and soon after they came to power they would no longer be the relevant experts. Similar problems result from giving them an official advisory role.
其他形式的管理方式会更加持续听取相关专家的建议么？即使我们能确认出当前的专家，我们也不能只是让他们负责。他们可能会做对他们有益的事情，而不是对剩下的我们有益的事情，一旦他们掌握了权利他们就不再是相关方面的专家了。给予他们官方咨询顾问的角色，也会产生同样的问题。

"Futarchy" is an as yet untried form of government intended to address such problems. In futarchy, democracy would continue to say what we want, but betting markets would now say how to get it. That is, elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. The basic rule of government would be:
When a betting market clearly estimates that a proposed policy would increase expected national welfare, that proposal becomes law.
“Futarchy”是一种未经检验的管理方式，目的是为了解决这类问题。在Futarchy中，民主依然是表达我们想要什么，但是对赌市场现在来决定如何实现它。那就是，当选代表对国民福利，在形式上规定和管理“事后”措施，同时市场投机者会说出期待那种策略来提升国民财富。管理的基本原则是：
当对赌市场清晰地估计出一个被提议政策会提高期望的国民财富，这个提议就会变成法律。

Futarchy is intended to be ideologically neutral; it could result in anything from an extreme socialism to an extreme monarchy, depending on what voters say they want, and on what speculators think would get it for them.

Futarchy的目的是在意识形态上中立；它可以导致一切从极度的社会主义到极度的君主制度，这取决于投票人表明他们想要什么，以及投机者认为应该为他们拿什么。

Futarchy seems promising if we accept the following three assumptions:
Democracies fail largely by not aggregating available information.
It is not that hard to tell rich happy nations from poor miserable ones.
Betting markets are our best known institution for aggregating information.

Futarchy似乎有希望成功，如果我们接受以下三个假定：

• 民主多半会失败因为没有收集到足够多的信息。
• 分辨富有幸福的国家和贫穷痛苦的国家并不是那么困难。
• 对赌市场是我们知道的收集信息的最佳机构。

GDP is today the most common measure of national wealth. It seems hard for frequent travelers to escape the impression that people in high GDP nations tend to be richer and better off than those in low GDP nations. Economists thus tend to be willing to recommend policies that macroeconomic data suggest are causally related to increasing GDP. It seems that it is not that hard to, after the fact, tell rich satisfied nations from poor miserable ones. GDP may be good enough, and with the full attention of our elected representatives, we should be able to do even better, such as by including happiness, inequality, health, leisure, and environment measures.
GDP现在是最通用的衡量国民财富的标准。经常旅游的人很容易有这样的印象，那些在高GDP国家的人比那些低GDP的国家的人相对更富有。经济学家往往愿意推荐那些，在宏观经济数据上显示有对增长GDP有因果关系的政策。看起来在经过这个事实之后，分辨富有满足的国家和贫穷痛苦的国家并不难。GDP或许就足够了，在有了当选代表的全部关注下，我们应该做的更好，比如包括幸福感，社会平等，健康，休息时间和环境等标准。

If we can measure how rich nations are, we can use such measurements to settle bets. This is good because betting markets, and speculative markets more generally, seem to do very well at aggregating information. To have a say in a speculative market, you have to "put your money where your mouth is." Those who know they are not relevant experts shut up, and those who do not know this eventually lose their money, and then shut up. Speculative markets in essence offer to pay anyone who sees a bias in current market prices to come and correct that bias.
如果我们可以衡量国家的富裕程度，我们可以使用这样的标准来建立赌注。这是很好的，因为对赌市场和投机者们普遍在搜集信息方面做的更加出色。为了在预测市场上有发言权，你必须“有所行动“。那些人们知道他们不是相关方面的专家的人会闭嘴，那些最终不了解事实的人最终会损失他们的资金，然后他们就闭嘴了。预测市场的本质是，提供机会支付给那些看到了当前市场价格有偏见然后来纠正偏见的人。

Speculative market estimates are not perfect. There seems to be a long-shot bias when there are high transaction costs, and perhaps also excess volatility in long term aggregate price movements. But such markets seem to do very well when compared to other institutions. For example, racetrack market odds improve on the predictions of racetrack experts, Florida orange juice commodity futures improve on government weather forecasts, betting markets beat opinion polls at predicting U.S. election results, and betting markets consistently beat Hewlett Packard official forecasts at predicting Hewlett Packard printer sales. In general, it is hard to find information that is not embodied in market prices.
预测市场的估计比不是完美的。当有很高交易费用时，看起来会是一种高风险赌注的“偏见”，在长期的价格累计走势中，可能还会有过度的波动。但是，这样的市场，当与其它机构比较起来时，它看起来做的要好。例如，跑道市场的赔率会改善跑道专家的预测，佛罗里达的橙汁期货市场会改善政府的天气预报，对赌市场打败民意调查在预测美国选举结果上，对赌市场在预测惠普打印机销售时持续打败惠普的官方预测。总的来讲，很难找到一样不能用市场价格体现的信息。

A betting market can estimate whether a proposed policy would increase national welfare by comparing two conditional estimates: national welfare conditional on adopting the proposed policy, and national welfare conditional on not adopting the proposed policy. Betting markets can produce conditional estimates several ways, such as via "called-off bets," i.e., bets that are called off if a condition is not met.
对赌市场可以估计一个被提议的政策，是否会增加国民财富，通过对比两个有条件的估计：国民财富在采纳被提议政策的条件下，以及国民财富在未采纳被提议的政策的条件下。对赌市场可以产生几种条件估计，例如“命令停止”等，对赌可以在一个条件不满足时停止。

For a more detailed and academic discussion of futarchy, see my paper, Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs?, to appear in Journal of Political Philosophy, 2013. See also versions from 2007, 2003, 2000.

更多详细信息和关于futarchy的学术讨论，可以查看我的论文Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs?，在2013年的* Journal of Political Philosophy*有刊登。也可以参看其它版本从2007，2003，2000.

提到futarchy的媒体:
Max Bruinsma, Chris Keulemans, De cultuur als markt De Groene Amsterdammer August 12, 2000. (in Dutch) (English version)
Hal Varian, A Market Approach to Politics. New York Times, Page C2, May 8, 2003.
Ralf Grotker, Besser regieren, brand eins, 134-137, October, 2007. (in German)
Mark Leibovich and Grant Barrett, The Buzzwords of 2008, New York Times, December 21, 2008.
Robin Hanson, Open-Source Government: How can we fix our political system?, BBC Focus 206:21, August 2009.

原文：http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
译者：@rubyu2